[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
....
> What do people think will happen?
> Who will be against it?
I'll find out in two days.
> Will the scope finally encompass some of the areas that have been exempt
> from dual units (e.g. milk)?
That depends on how the amendment is worded. The shortest amendment
would address only items now required to be dual-labeled, I would
imagine. Life is to complicated, unfortunately, to get an amendment
passed that merely says "Anything can be sold in the U.S. with only
metric labeling." Makes a nice pipe dream, though. Almost as nice a pipe
dream as the one that has a new law enacted disavowing and delegalizing
any and all non-SI units.
> Do you think that people will lobby to permit inch-pound-only'?
Bound to be some!
> Is there an 'official' USMA position?
Is this a test question? Grin. The USMA has been instrumental in
getting the dual labeling law passed, thus opening the door a bit for
metric labeling. This opens the door farther. I'm confident that the
USMA has played and is still playing a key role in the politicking
needed to get this amendment draft through the various government
agencies (other than Dept. of Comm.) that have to sign off on it. The
USMA has helped line up speakers in support of metric-only labeling for
this meeting, most certainly.
I'll raise again a point that I've posted here before, but some time
ago. In general, our political system advances incrementally. Changes in
our country's laws come about too fast for some, too slow for others,
and thus about at the "average pace". This characterizes us as "muddling
through" issues. The rare exceptions are all keyed to some focusing
event. For our creation of the EPA and spate of environmental protection
laws, look to Rachel Carson's book ("Silent Spring"). Today, we're
seeing large and rapid changes in our security procedures and the
creation of a new department (Homeland Security) as the result of the
events that occurred in only a couple of hours on 2001-09-11. For us to
make a large and rapid shift to becoming metric-only here, would require
a similar focusing event. Perhaps being shut out of the EU markets would
do that. By the way, if you'll recall, our great metric progress in the
mid-70s came at the end of a significant recession and a major slump in
our world trade share. Hmmmmmm.
Jim
> --
> Terry Simpson
> Human Factors Consultant
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> www.connected-systems.com
> Phone: +44 7850 511794
